Garden Organic Masters conference 2016

Because I am a Three Counties Traditional Orchards Champion and  now a Worcestershire Master Composter ( yes I managed to get back to being one!)

I am again one of the family of Garden Organic volunteers :)

So yesterday I drove to Ryton to attend the annual conference - always a highlight of my year :)

My first workshop was on natural dyeing

I made this :)

I feel another craft interest blooming :)

Drying my dyed silk hankies on the marquee bunting line

After an excellent lunch we had more talks, another workshop choice ( I did composting creatures :) )

Then tea and cake!

An excellent day, spent with lots of friends as usual :)

Garden Organic Masters Conference June 21st 2014

(While I am still convalescing, a post from the weekend before The Blandford Fly incident.)



What a way to spend the Solstice :)

Up early at silly o'clock and did the chickens and watered the polytunnel, then set off to drive to Ryton to spend the day at Garden Organic HQ

 Lots of Master Composter and Master Gardener friends to catch up with

 

Laverstock Farm shop

 

excellent plants grown by a local organic community interest company - I bought several perennials.

 The fabulous gardens

My first workshop choice - a tour of the Heritage Seed Library polytunnels and gardens and a tutorial on how to save seed.

More gardens - I had a lovely wander around. This is looking one way over the perennial flower meadow

Looking the other way...

Close up of a ?Jerusalem Sage? flower

 And finally a panoramic view of the whole gigantic flower bed. Click on the photo to get the full glory of it!

 Of course, we had cake - wouldn't be a conference without cake!

After tea and cake, we had a tour of 5 Acre Farm, CSA and box scheme based at Ryton. Very interesting to see how they do it and what they were growing.

 My final workshop was about helping to attract insects into the garden and identifying them once you have attracted them. Very informative and interesting.

The conference finished at 5 pm and I arrived back home at 8 pm, hot and tired after a very long day, to sit and enjoy my own garden with a cold drink!

I recommend a trip to Garden Organic Ryton, always inspiring and full of good ideas.

Bank Holiday Blossomtime

#CompostAwarenessWeek  @TheBigAppleHfd #MasterComposter @gardenorganicuk 

We were up early and I loaded up the car with more plants and my bag with some lunch and water bottle. All else was left in the car overnight so I didn't need to do much else except put on my name badge and then off we went up the road to the Bank Holiday Monday Blossomtime event at our local village hall.

I set up my stall again in my usual corner, with lots of help from lovely Compostman who came with me to assist. I also handed in the Lemon trickle cake he had made as a contribution to the WI cake and tea stall. The WI do every year as a fundraiser and this year I think money raised will go towards new toilets in the village hall. Compostman was too shy to hand it in himself, but I made sure they knew it was his baking not mine as I wanted him to get any credit due!

 

 

Today is usually a different set of people from Sunday, on Sunday I usually see far more local people whereas Monday is often busy with visitors from wider afield - often people holidaying in our area who decide Blossomtime, orchard walks and cider tasting sounds like a fun day out  :) 

 

Yesterday I spent a lot of time discussing the compost making process. Today I talked to people about chicken keeping and free range eggs, growing vegetables and how to care for tomato plants, as well as how to use compost. This is one of the many things I love about being a Master Composter - every event is different.

 

I also handed out lots of leaflets, chatted to loads of visitors and sold more plants to fund raise for Garden Organic. On the stall I spoke to 20 people about keeping chickens,  25 people about compost related issues, and another 15 about gardening and plants :) I talked to lots more people as I wandered around the event as well.

After lunch Compostman arrived with Compostgirl. She immediately went off with a group of friends to have fun at the RSPB stall and pet the animals brought by Paul Hands of Bees and Trees. Compostman and I went for tea and cake from the WI stall - a welcome break!   Then at 2.30 the Leominster Morris Men began to arrive and the crowd suddenly swelled as more people came to see them dance.

I love our local Morris side but if you are not a fan of Morris Dancing scroll down to the bottom!

It was terrific to watch, as always, and so much fun :) 

After the excitement of the Morris dancing, we went into the hall and tasted a few samples of cider and chatted to some of our neighbours. Most of the fields around us are cider orchards and it is good to chat to our farming neighbours as we don't often get to meet up.

Finally at the close of the event we loaded up the car with all the contents of the stall - I try to do it so my stall is packed away ready for next time rather than just throwing it all in the car any old how- although sometimes if it rains that is what happens - today though it was dry and sunny so all was put away in an orderly fashion.

And then home, to sit down with a cup of tea - bliss! 

I feel very shattered after another very long day on my feet, but have had an excellent two days of talking compost to people

I hope you all had a good weekend, also :)

Blossomtime day one.

#MasterComposter @TheBigAppleHfd  @gardenorganicuk #CompostAwarenessWeek

I have spent a busy day based at my village hall just up the road, being Compostwoman at the Blossomtime event  :) Lots of compost advice dispensed, lots of leaflets and chat and laughter and fun and a small amount of cider drunk, once I had finished talking compost to people :) Also sold loads of my tomato plants to fundraise for Garden Organic. I spoke to 35 people today about compost related issues, another 15 about gardening and plants and 10 people about keeping chickens  :)

I always love doing this event; it is usually the first event I do in the new season also it coincides with Compost Awareness Week every year :).

I also did some seed planting with children and we had lots of fun looking at composting creatures through my bug viewers :)

Home this evening to pot on more plants to sell for fundraising for Garden Organic at the Bank Holiday Monday Blossomtime event ( It goes on for two days) I have loads of Heritage Seed Library tomato and pepper varieties to sell :)

I feel a bit shattered after a very long day on my feet, but have had an excellent day.

Then to add the icing on the cake that was today, at dusk the Nightingales started singing and I listened and then rcorded seven males singing their hearts out to each other - I just hope there were some females around to be wooed by their wonderous songs!

Fabulous to be able to listen to something like that :)

I love where I live :)

May Day

So, May Day already! I was up early to bring in the May and greet the sunrise.

I spent a lot of this afternoon getting plants ready for sale at the Blossomtime event this weekend - two days of celebrations of cider and apples and the beautiful fields full of apple trees in blossom we are lucky enough to have around here.


I now have around 100 mainly tomato plants ready to sell with the profit going to Garden Organic.




I also spent a fair bit of time washing the very last of the pots. I set up a washing station at just the right height for me to wash things without hurting my back, which made the job a lot easier.



I just need to sort out all the leaflets and seeds and stuff I need for my composting stall at Blossomtime and  I will be ready for my first "Compostwoman" event of the year :)


Tonight there was a knock on the back door - some people had seen a chicken up the lane and stopped to ask if it was mine - nice of them - so I walked up to have a look.

I spotted this handsome little fellow - a Silkie or Polish Bantam, but he would not let me catch him. I telephoned some neighbours but he was not theirs and he had gone the next morning. I do hope he found his way back home and was not eaten by the fox.






This is the view up the lane past our house, as you can see we have no near neighbours!

Masters Conference 2013 Garden Organic Ryton.

8 am on a sunny September Saturday morning saw me heading off to Garden Organic HQ at Ryton.

Having arrived safely and refreshed myself with coffee and cake, I chatted to various friends and then the Conference proper started in a huge marquee in the grounds, with Dr Margi Lennartson welcoming  us to the Conference.

More than 215 volunteer Master Composters, Master Gardeners, Seed Stewards and other like minded volunteers attended  the Masters Conference for a day of activities organised to celebrate their achievements.

A series of organic gardening themed workshops took place across the day with subject areas including community composting, wildlife gardening, soil science, chicken keeping and fruit growing advice.

I opted to do the Hens@Home training workshops. This is a new scheme which trains Master Composters and Master Gardeners as "Hen Ambassadors"  to encourage and mentor people who want to keep chickens in their gardens. The scheme was launched at this Conference. and you can see a photo of some of us here

We took part in a series of workshops and much information was exchanged and discussed. Some of us kept hens and knew a fair bit about them while others did not know so much, so it was really enjoyable. We were given an excellent handbook on basic chicken keeping (as always anything produced by Garden Organic is excellent) and also had sessions from  a BHWT  tutor. He bought along some lovely ex commercial hens and everyone enjoyed cuddling them :)

Professor Chris Baines addressing the gathered members.

Chris Baines is a Garden Organic Ambassador and campaigner for urban nature conservation and he treated us to an informative and inspirational speech,  highlighting the actions we can take now, to protect our natural environment for the future

 Everyone was very attentive :)

After the Awards were presented, we ate cake!

Compost related, of course

I went back to the final session of the Hens@Home training

And then spent a bit of time wandering around the gorgeous gardens at Ryton

Ending with a good look around the Composting area :)

I didn't get back home until after 8 pm so it was a very long day and the driving made my back ache.
As always though I came away invigorated and recharged from talking to so many fellow Composters and Gardeners about our passion for Organic methods.

You can see more images from the day on the Garden Organic  Flickr stream